It's a grotesque sight. The blunt butter knife was stabbed through with so much force that it uncorked the body like a champagne bottle. The blood went everywhere. You can still hear it, the blood wheezing out of the wound. It's congealing into a sticky residue on the knife handle and the hand that's still grasping it. The audience hasn't said a word; they're waiting for an explanation, and honestly who could blame them? It has been 90 minutes since the 74th Hunger Games, and President Snow currently has a butter knife stuck in his throat. The murderer turns around. The audience doesn't know who they are. All hell breaks loose.

I'm alive.

I'm alone.

I'm on a Capitol train I don't remember getting on.

…and I feel like shit. I groan as I step up from the bathroom floor. My body aches all over but I ignore it to look at my reflection. The 74th Hunger Game lasted for only 18 days, but it felt like a lifetime; I hardly recognize the girl in the mirror. Katniss Everdeen is a bow and arrow in the woods trying her best to keep her sister alive. She's not pretty with clean skin, tied hair, and dead eyes.

There's a knock on the door.

I freeze. There's a chance, a slim one, that whoever's at the door doesn't know I'm here, and I'll need all the chances I can get. The bathroom is close quarters; there are no other exits or places to hide. Blocking the door may buy me some time, but with my small stature it won't be enough, especially against a male, and I don't have a bow with me—no weapons at all. I'm alone.

The knocks get louder.

No, not alone, I amend; someone's knocking on the door. Breathe. The door is locked, but it won't be forever. There has to be something here that I can use. My eyes dart around. The bathroom is sparse, heavily gilded, but sparse. There's a small hand towel hanging behind me. If I can get it around the neck fast enough I might—

The door clicks open.

"Katniss?"

Haymitch quirks his brow and I can feel my face heat up as he takes in the sight of me frozen in mid-lunge.

"You ready to come out of there, sweetheart?" Haymitch asks, then his gaze lands on the towel still grasped tightly in my outstretched hand and he adds, "Unless of course you'd like to finish drying your hands first?"

"I'm fine," I reply, throwing the towel down and pushing past him before he can respond. I end up in a dining room, and the decoration alone confirms my first suspicion: we are on a Capitol train. There's no mistaking the plush furniture and mahogany table for anything other than utterly Capitol.

"That's not what I asked."

I tense as Haymitch walks in behind me, so light footed he barely leaves an indent in the rich carpet. He still walks like a tribute I realize, and then I wonder if he always walked like that or if the Games affected him as much as they affected me. I hope they have. The thought of Haymitch winning his Game and then forgetting he's on a Capitol train heading to the Victor's Village brings solidarity. But Haymitch adjusting to life outside of the arena faster than I do, leaves a cold fist in my gut.

"My hands are dry," I force myself to smile and make a show of waving my hands around. "See?"

Haymitch says nothing and grabs a chair. He points to the one next to me.

There are only two plates on the table; Peeta isn't on this train.

"Bit jumpy today, aren't you?" Haymitch observes. "That's alright, jumpiness helped you survive the Hunger Games."

I notice he says survive instead of win.

"What's going on?"

"Ah, ah, ah." Haymitch taps his watch. "Before I start explaining, I want you to take a deep breath and hold it in for ten seconds."

"I—"

"You can spend ten seconds holding your breath or you can spend ten hours arguing with me," he interrupts, "and as your mentor, I highly recommend you choose ten seconds."

"Is—"

"You're panicking, Katniss. Do you even remember getting on this train?"

I do. I know I do. Somewhere in my mind there are flashes of a crowd, confusion, and being thrust onto this train, but that doesn't matter now. Only one thing matters.

I raise my eyes to his, daring him to interrupt me again,

"Is Prim safe?"

He nods, and I hold my breath.

Ten

Nine

Eight

I remember worried faces. Everyone was worried. Even Caesar. Haymitch had snatched my arm…

Seven

Six

Five

Something went wrong.

Four

Three

Two

"Where's Peeta?"

One

"Well, that was almost ten seconds. Really closer to eight but since it's you I'll allow it." He squeezes the armrest and I realize that his hands are empty.

"What's going on, where is everyone, where are we going, and why aren't you drinking?"

"Asking the important questions now, are we?" Haymitch smiles, but it's bitter and his shoulders are tense. "I'm not drinking for the moment, sweetheart, because I can't have my reflexes dulled because the Capitol, well…" He looks around him, then leans forward, waggles his eyebrows, and whispers conspiratorially, "Did you know the odds were rigged in their favor?"

"They're upset that we won together."

"Furious."

"And now they're going to kill us?"

"Normally, yes." He hesitates. "But now, you see, they're not just angry at you. The cat's out of the bag. Turns out the games have been rigged from the start, not in the Capitol's favor, but in President Snow's. Speaking of which," Haymitch grins, "did I mention that cunt is dead?"

"…"

"Katniss?"

"If he's dead, what happens to us?"

Haymitch sighs. "Right, let's just go straight to the bad news." He runs his hand through his hair. "Bad news is that you can't go home because the person who did him in was a third party."

"Meaning?"

"It was a Gamemaker."

He's lying. Why would he lie? No.

I take a deep breath.

"Why would a Gamemaker, of all people, kill Snow?"

"They had internal conflict. Some of them didn't like how the games quote unquote, 'wasted potential soldiers.'" He spits vehemently to the side and internally I echo his sentiment. The Gamemakers valued lives even less than Snow did. They would think of the most entertaining ways to kill tributes, even if they were only twelve years old. I clench my fists at the unexpected reminder of Rue.

"They tried to find a way to bring the tributes back from death."

I freeze.

"Now, don't get me wrong," he continues, unperturbed, "they were only concerned about the Careers, but then Snow scrapped the project so they did him in." He mimes stabbing a knife through his neck. "Right now, everyone's confused about who's in charge and what that means for this years tributes so we—"

"Wait. Back in the arena, there were Muttations. One of them—" I dry swallow. "One of them had Rue's eyes."

Did I imagine it? I couldn't have. I couldn't. Haymitch is reaching over his armrest for a drink, his fingers curl wishfully around air before he realizes there's nothing there. He meets my gaze.

"They injected more than a tracker this year, and," he shrugs, "turns out there's not much of a difference between a mutt and a tribute. The Muttations were a bastardization of the original project; instead of bringing a tribute back to life, it brought them back to life as a deranged mutt, but the base formula was still present. All the 74th tributes are alive."

I hear nothing but the blood in my veins.

"W—What did you say?" I stammer. I never stammer. Something is wrong.

"You heard me the first time, Katniss," he says gently. I can hear the worry in his voice, and I'm sure if I looked up I would see lines in his forehead and creases between his brows but right now I'm too focused on my palms. They're sweaty and starting to itch and what the hell is going on?

I wipe my hands on my pants and try to swallow.

Distantly I can hear Haymitch saying something, explaining something, something important about hiding, and I want to listen, I really do but I can't. Because the room is spinning and I'm about to fall and wouldn't it be a shame if this time I never woke up?

I wake up.

It's dark. There's barely enough light to make out the couch I'm lying on. As my eyes adjust, I can see different shapes on the upholstery. I try to trace the pattern with my finger. It feels gaudy. Capitol.

I close my eyes.

Sleep is so much more enticing than trying to untangle the impossible. I was there, Haymitch wasn't; he didn't see the tributes die. Even if there was more than a tracker, even if the Gamemakers tried something new, there's no possible way for them to be alive. I saw them die.

I can feel the train roar beneath me.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you have the absolute worst timing?"

I keep my eyes shut. I don't have the patience for sober Haymitch.

coldcoldcoldcoldCOLDCOLD

I jolt up from the couch absolutely drenched from the shoulder up, and littered with ice cubes. "Did you throw water on me?" I splutter.

"I'm pretending it's vodka," replies Haymitch, not the least bit apologetic.

I glare at Haymitch, or at least try to; it's difficult to glare and rub feeling back into your face at the same time. I loathe to admit it, but throwing ice water was effective. I'm more alert now, and there's no way for me to comfortably lie back down on the clammy couch. Standing up, I can see why there's hardly any light; thick, heavy curtains cover the train windows.

"Security," Haymitch says, catching my gaze. He's reaching for a bucket of ice on the table and despite my anger, I can't help but watch on bemusedly as he scoops a fistful of ice into a glass and then, with intense concentration, adds just a tiny thimbleful of water.

I shake my head. This isn't the time to be wondering about Haymitch's strange idiosyncrasies. There are much more important questions.

"Where's Peeta? Why isn't he on the train?"

"Peeta, well, he is a lot more charismatic than you are." Haymitch gives me a pointed look.

He's right—I'm not the least bit charismatic, but I don't particularly feel like agreeing with Haymitch when his cheeks are bulging with ice cubes.

Haymitch swallows, somehow, then continues,

"Peeta and others are going to see if they can placate the crowds a bit before meeting up with us in Warehouse A."

"Warehouse A? Where are we going? And why does he have to placate anyone?"

Haymitch pours in more ice.

"It's like this, Katniss, no one likes the 74th tributes. Snow's supporters don't like you and Peeta winning together, the Capitol doesn't like not knowing what's going on, and everyone else doesn't like the Hunger Games at all."

"And how does that affect us?" I demand.

"It affects you because Panem is bloodthirsty and needs to be sated," explains Haymitch while chewing ice. "They may disagree on who should win, but they still want their Hunger Games. They don't like the idea of no one dying, and when something happens that they don't like, Panem has a habit of killing everyone then pretending nothing went wrong. To stop them we're keeping the tributes in hiding."

"We?"

"The rebellion: people who don't like the Hunger Games at all."

"But where exactly are we going?"

"I'm not sure, only Effie knows the exact location."

"Effie?" I question, "Effie Trinket-?" Haymitch smirks, "No one would believe that bobblehead knows anything important, and very, very few would stomach the headache to try and talk to her." He looks oddly proud.

"But is it safe? How long will I be there?"

"The place we're going to is out of both District and Capitol territory. It's where the Gamemakers first tested weather simulations. There's a literal blizzard standing between you and them. You'll be there as long as you have to be. I wish I could say it won't be long, but something like this has never happened before."

My head hurts.

"Haymitch, I want to go home. I can stay in hiding there."

Even as I say this I know it's not entirely true. They may hide me, but there's a reason District 12 never had a volunteer. The Capitol would only have to threaten to further limit our already scarce resources, and we would crumble. I think back to the meager faces of District 12. I couldn't blame them for turning me in. I would do the same if it meant saving Prim. Prim…

"What about my family? What if the Capitol—" fear grips me "—what if all of Panem goes after them?"

Haymitch's face darkens. "I won't let them hurt your family, Katniss; I promise."

I look, truly look, at Haymitch and try to see him as the Victor that he is. His appearance is still bedraggled, but his eyes are no longer bloodshot. There's a certain fire to them that wasn't there before. His whole demeanor has changed; his posture is straighter. He's no longer pretending to be defeated. I believe in him, I do, but I'm not used to putting my life in someone else's hands. I think Haymitch understands that because he changes the subject.

"You'll be living together with the last eight tributes and the District 1 female."

I wish he hadn't changed the subject.

"I'll be living with the Careers?!"

"And Rue. And Peeta. Thresh—"

"I thought you said I'd be in hiding?" I interrupt. "I thought that meant I'd be in hiding alone. How is having us live together supposed to make us harder to find? And why with the Careers instead of literally anyone else?"

"You nine had the most attention in the games," he says, exasperated. "The audience barely knew the other tributes, a change of hair and a different name was all they needed. We had to find a place that would keep you safe from all the Districts and the Capitol. There weren't many options."

"But the Careers? They can't go anywhere else? They volunteered to be in the Games."

Haymitch gives me another pointed look.

"As did you, remember?"

"For my sister, not for glory. They'll probably want to stay dead to make the Hunger Games more authentic." I wince, my words sounding harsh even to me, but it's true. The Careers, they killed tributes and laughed about it.

"They have as little a choice in the matter as you do, sweetheart. Panem wants to forget the 74th Hunger Games ever happened; they're not looking for a do-over."

I slump down dejectedly. "So that's it, then; I'm supposed to give the Careers another chance to kill me?"

"They won't kill you—"

I scoff.

"Because they can't—"

"They came close."

"Listen to me, Katniss; very few people with power want all the tributes alive. Most Districts only want their tribute alive, if at all, and there's a high chance that whoever replaces Snow's will also want all the tributes dead. If the people who want you alive had any power then this would be a completely different story, but they don't."

I grit my teeth but there's nothing I can say. District 12 has always been powerless.

"The ones with the most power right now are the Gamemakers. They have the capabilities, the equipment, and they're playing both sides. We're working with some of the Gamemakers, the ones who were against Snow, but make no mistake, they're not on our side."

Anger flashes across his eyes.

"You're a bartering chip to them, Katniss, it's another game only this time they want to prove that they can have their Hunger Games and their tributes. Otherwise they'd kill us as happily as they killed Snow. The other tributes won't try to kill you—they can't, because if any one of them does, if any one of them tries, if any tribute dies at all, then you will all die."